The oil and gas industry is seeking to exploit UK onshore gas reserves trapped in shale rock and coal beds requiring environmentally damaging and risky techniques, including hydraulic fracturing (fracking). In the US this there is considerable evidence thishas created polluted communities, streams, air, and aquifers.

There is a risk of explosive well blowouts, as well as traffic disruption, noise and the industrialisation of the countryside. Gas may be able to escape and create a fire risk more than a mile from the site, risking lives and property.

Even before therehas beena robust scientific consensus on this, and to demonstrate what practices may be adopted to minimise hazards, this technology has been used at a site of an important groundwater aquifer and there are over 80 further applications which have been applied for around the UK.

Aquifers are a natural source of our drinking water, and there is a risk of catastrophic harm to water resources, communities and the environment from this industry, which may roll out across Lancashire and other parts of the UK